Sunshine Coast news on popular platforms.

Council combats midge explosion

The moon and stars have aligned and all charts point to August 20 at 6pm.
No not horoscopes, council has been reading the lunar charts to pinpoint the best time to tackle excessive midge larval levels, which are set to explode at Currimundi Lake in Spring
From tomorrow, council will keep the water at the Lake at its high tide level for six weeks to drown larvae and reduce midge numbers by around 95%.
Division 3 Councillor Peter Cox said council had been rigorously monitoring midges at Currimundi Lake since 2008.
“Recently we’ve noticed a higher than usual increase and a wider distribution across the lake,” Cr Cox said.
“Our monitoring predicts a significant hatch of adult biting midge in spring, something that we haven’t seen for more than a few years and as residents haven’t experienced good numbers of adult midge for a while, their level of tolerance will be very low.
“To combat this we need to interrupt the midge larval hatching cycle, which we’ll do by maintaining a high water level in the lake for around six weeks.
“From August 19 at high tide, council will manually close off the entrance to keep the water in the lake—this will drown the larvae and effectively reduce midge numbers by around 95%. The lake will still remain open during this time; it will just be constantly full.
“The closure should prevent the spring hatch of adults and keep their populations down for many months afterwards.
“We aim to keep the disruption to a minimum although residents will notice machinery on the beach while the entrance is closed.
“Council will also be monitoring the water quality of the lake to ensure safe swimming conditions for all users.
“Council is committed to protecting our enviable lifestyle and maintaining safe and healthy communities—managing these types of amenity issues is just one way we are doing that.”